The present invention relates to an ink jet printer and more particularly to an ink jet printer capable of causing a print head thereof to recover from defective ink ejection, a printing method practicable with the ink jet printer, and a storage medium storing the printing method.
An ink jet printer extensively used today drives a print head thereof in accordance with a signal received from a computer and thereby prints a text or a graphic on a recording medium. Conventional ink jet printers are generally classified into two types. One type of ink jet printer includes a print head portion and a replaceable or removable ink tank storing ink therein and allows, when the ink tank runs out of ink, the ink tank to be replaced alone. The other type of ink jet printer includes a print head and an ink tank constructed integrally with each other and causes, when the ink tank runs out of ink, the print head to be replaced together with the ink tank.
The problem with the printer including the replaceable ink tank is that at the time of replacement of the tank an ink feed section is exposed to the outside. As a result, bubbles and dust are introduced into the ink feed section and stop up an ink passage, making ink ejection defective. In light of this, it has been customary to arrange a filter in the ink passage and to compress or suck the ink with recovering means for thereby discharging the bubbles via the ends of nozzles. The recovering means, however, must repeat suction a number of times for fully discharging the bubbles from the ink passage, resulting in the wasteful consumption of ink.
Technologies relating to the present invention are disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication Nos. 3-73354, 3-132357, 7-117240, 3-272861, 9-240019, and 10-34949.